


The End is The Beginning

by madders



Series: Every Road Taken (Leads You Back To The Beginning) [1]
Category: Angel: the Series, S.W.A.T. (2003), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Clint Barton is Penn, Clint Barton is Penn and almost every other character Jeremy Renner has ever played... no really, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-14
Updated: 2012-07-19
Packaged: 2017-11-09 23:30:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/459717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madders/pseuds/madders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawkeye wasn't the only identity that the man best known as Clint Barton had used- (or how Clint Barton really started off life as the vampire Penn).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Penn didn’t know what happened, or where he was in that time between. There was a momentary flash of pain mixed with disbelief as the stake went through his Sire’s body before it penetrated his own heart and his body crumbled into dust, followed by a tearing sensation as the demon part of him was ripped away, and agony as something that he recognized as his soul, his humanity was returned to him before he was cast into the abyss; and then there was… nothing. 

He didn’t know where he was, or how long he had been there, his tattered essence drifting in a void free of the measure of time or sensation, leaving him nothing to do except relive his memories, clinging tenuously to his sanity as he tried to reconcile his past as a demon with the human part of him; until suddenly he felt something tugging at him. He tried to twist away, somehow sensing that pain was imminent, but the void he was in was as insubstantial as him, and there was nothing for him to hold on to, so he was unable to stop whatever it was from dragging him back into being.

The agony seemed to last an eternity as his body reformed atom by atom, before he finally collapsed to his knees. His screams of agony faded away as he curled his body up, his head buried in his arms and hands over his ears, his senses overwhelmed. It was only then, as he tried to calm his panicked breathing that he realized that his long dead heart was beating once more.

Biting back a whimper as the pain finally started to ease; he tried to force his mind to concentrate, so that he could try to work out what had happened and where he was, but somehow he knew that whatever the answer, it was unlikely to be good.

Behind him, a door opened, and he heard the shuffling of feet as someone entered.

He flinched as a hand touched his bare shoulder, his skin still oversensitive to touch.

“Penn?” a male voice called his name, making him flinch at the noise.

“Can you understand me?” the voice asked, somewhat softer.

Lifting his head, Penn looked up at the man standing behind him, squinting against the light coming from the open door.

“Cut the light,” the voice called, and after a moment, the light disappeared, leaving them in almost complete darkness.

“Better?” the voice asked. 

“Yes,” he whispered, wincing at the broken sound of his voice.

“Here,” the man said, offering a bottle of water and removing the lid. “Drink it slowly,” he warned. 

Taking the bottle in shaking hands, he held it up to his lips, wincing as the dry skin cracked.

After a few sips to cool his parched throat, he stopped, looking at the man who was still crouched beside him.

“Where am I?” he asked, his voice a little stronger.

“You’re at a safe house in LA for Wolfram and Hart,” the man replied. “I’m Lindsey McDonald, and we’re very glad to have you back with us.”


	2. Chapter 2

“What do you want with me?” Penn asked. 

“We have a job for you,” Lindsey replied.

“What job?” he asked.

“Later,” Lindsey replied. “First, let’s get you cleaned up, some clothes and food.”

Lindsey climbed to his feet and held out a hand to him. Penn looked at it for a moment before taking it, letting Lindsey help him to his feet, uncaring of his nakedness.

“Bathroom is through that door, towels are in there. I’ll get some clothes brought in for you in a moment,” Lindsey informed him, as he carefully avoided looking down. “Are you going to manage?” he asked.

“I’ll be fine,” Penn replied softly. He may feel as weak as a baby, but there was no way that he was going to allow a stranger that close to him.

Lindsey regarded him for a moment before nodding his assent and leaving the room. 

Penn watched him go, the door closing behind him, and the unmistakable sound of a lock clicking into place. It appeared that Lindsey wasn’t taking any chances of him leaving- not that he was in any condition to right now.

He scanned the dimly lit room, taking in the bed along with the small table and chair that were the only contents, before managing a few shaky steps towards the door that Lindsey had indicated contained the bathroom. Leaning heavily against the wall, he opened the door, taking in the contents of the small bathroom, which contained a toilet; sink and shower; along with a stack of towels folded on top of the cistern. Taking a few more steps, he made it into the bathroom proper and reached up to turn on the shower, needing to try and get some warmth into his frozen bones.

He closed the bathroom door behind him, spotting immediately that the lock had been removed, and rubbed a hand through his hair. He didn’t like this, he was still a little disoriented, and his mind was still trying to reconcile the fact that he seemed to be alive again, but every part of him was screaming that he needed to get out, to get away from this place, and out of Wolfram and Hart’s clutches as fast as he could, but he knew that he wasn’t in any shape to even try. Looking down at his naked form, he shook his head; he certainly wasn’t going to get far without any clothes.

Of course he knew who Wolfram and Hart were, any demon worth their salt did; and in his vampire life he had managed to largely avoid having anything to do with them. For them to go through the trouble of resurrecting him was therefore puzzling, but he knew that they had done so only to serve their own purposes, and was unlikely to bode well for him, whatever it was that they needed him to do.

Somehow he knew that this had something to do with Angelus. Everything seemed to lead back to his Sire, and that he was back in LA, when Wolfram and Hart had offices across the globe, struck him as just a little too convenient to be coincidental. He sighed heavily, reaching under the spray of water to make sure it had warmed up before he stepped under the flow, bracing himself against the tiles as he let the water flow over head and cascade down his body.

He needed more information before he could make a plan, but there was no way he was going to stay in Wolfram and Hart’s clutches any longer than was absolutely necessary. 

For now at least though, he'd play their games.


	3. Chapter 3

The following days passed slowly as he regained his strength. It was strange for him to be human again after so long spent as a vampire, and the world was much different now than it had been back then. Food especially was much more varied, so it was amusing for him to discover what foods his human taste buds liked and disliked, and Lindsey seemed eager to keep him happy, and if that meant indulging his requests for a different cuisine for each meal, then he was only too glad to oblige him. 

Lindsey was the only one he ever actually spoke to, his other two guards seemed to be under orders not to converse with him, lest they reveal something they shouldn’t. 

No matter though, as he found he quite enjoyed verbally sparring with Lindsey, even if he was being evasive. Lindsey had let enough slip for him to know that his initial assumption was correct, and his return had something to do with Angelus, and that they were waiting for something else before those plans were ready to be put into action. He just hadn’t worked out yet how he was supposed to factor into those plans. 

Initially it had taken several days before he had convinced Lindsey to even let him out of the room, and another two days before he allowed him outside. But he had convinced him that he needed fresh air, and eventually Lindsey had capitulated. It didn’t hurt that Penn had carefully downplayed the extent of his recovery, making sure to appear much weaker than he truly was, even as he scanned his surroundings and took in the best escape routes, along with the relative strengths and weaknesses of his captors.  
He was now more than ready to make his move, but first he had to ascertain more about what Wolfram and Hart had planned.

***

It was late afternoon when there was a knock on Penn’s door, immediately followed by the sound of the lock turning, and he looked up from his spot leaning against the headboard as the door opened.

“Lindsey,” he greeted his visitor nonchalantly, turning his attention back to the TV.

“Penn,” Lindsey drawled, looking at the screen. “You enjoying that crap?” he asked.

“It’s amusing to see what pinnacle thousands of years of evolution has brought humanity to,” Penn replied. “Prostituting themselves in front of the masses for fame and fortune, and in the process opening themselves up to ridicule as they expose just what base creatures they truly are.”

“Yeah well, reality TV does that,” Lindsey snorted. “But who is truly the most ridiculous, those appearing on it, or those who watch it?”

Penn laughed, reaching for the remote and switching the TV off, slowly sitting upright on the bed and turning so that his feet were on the floor, facing Lindsey.

“True, true,” he admitted. “But it is after all my only window on the world, so I make do.”

Lindsey laughed; lifting the bag he was carrying and setting it on the table.

“Well if you’re going to rot your brain, best do it with the proper accompaniments,” he advised, reaching a hand in and pulling out a beer, knocking the cap off on the edge of the table and holding it out to him.

Penn climbed slowly to his feet and took it from him with a nod of thanks.

“So,” he began, sitting back down heavily on the bed and gesturing for Lindsey to take the chair. “What news do you have on this plan of yours?” he asked. “Because I’ve got to tell you, I’m failing to see how my sitting around all day helps achieve the Senior Partner’s goals.”

“Patience is not one of your virtues, is it now?” Lindsey replied.

“Never really saw a need for it,” he answered back with a smirk. “What’s the point in waiting for something, when you can just go ahead and take it?”

“Some things are worth waiting for,” Lindsey retorted. “After all, revenge is a dish best served cold, is it not?”

“So they say. But what _are_ we waiting for exactly?” he asked.

Lindsey sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair.

“We need one more puzzle piece,” he admitted.

“And what, or who is that?” Penn asked.

“We already have you, his firstborn childe, now all we need is _his_ sire.”

“Darla,” Penn replied, voice flat.

Lindsey nodded. “You and she did not get on?” he asked innocently.

“She’s a bitch,” Penn spat.

“Sounds like someone didn’t like fighting for Daddy’s attention,” Lindsey sneered a little, and Penn bristled.

“Fuck off; you didn’t have to live with her for almost a century.”

“Temper, temper,” Lindsey cautioned. “She’s the headliner; you’re just the chorus line in this little play of ours, so you’d better be willing to make nice with her.”

“If she’s so much more important, why bring me back first?” Penn questioned. Lindsey didn’t respond, but that in itself was answer enough.

Penn lifted his beer up and took a long drink before speaking. “Why the delay then?” he asked, gesturing down at his body. “Your test run proved it works just fine.”

“The Mystics tell us there’s a specific celestial alignment necessary for it to work,” Lindsey replied.

“Let me guess; they’re waiting for the new moon, aren’t they?” Penn snarked.

Lindsey smirked. “Smart boy.”

“And then you’ve got to wait for her to recover her strength, so you’re looking at another what, month?” he frowned. “And all the while I’m stuck here going slowly insane,” he took another sip of his beer and shook his head. 

“Are you complaining about Wolfram and Hart’s hospitality?” Lindsey asked; a dangerous undercurrent in his tone.

“Well, the only thing missing from my prison is the bars on the window,” Penn responded. “Oh wait, that would be if there was a fucking window in this room. I spent hundreds of years as a vampire without ever getting to enjoy a sunset, and now I’m back as a human, it’s still denied to me.”

Lindsey sighed and looked at his watch. “If I take you outside so you can see it, will you stop complaining?” he asked.

Penn drained the last of his beer before responding. “You’ll hear no more complaints from me,” he promised.

Lindsey finished his own beer and stood, walking over to Penn to help him stand. “C’mon then,” he cajoled. “Better hurry, or else you’ll miss it.”

***

He made sure to lean on Lindsey as they made their way up the stairs, keeping an eye on the guard following them as well as watching for the second man he knew had to be close by.

Once they were outside, he let Lindsey steer him towards a seat by some of the flower beds. He kept his pace slow, waiting for the guard behind to get into range, before he faked a stumble to pull Lindsey off balance, simultaneously reaching down and grabbing a large rock from one of the flowerbeds and pivoting neatly to smash Lindsey across his head with it. The lawyer fell like a sack of potatoes, and he immediately swung at the guard, the element of surprise allowing him to take him out with similar ease.

The second guard appeared from the back of the house, and pulled out a taser. Penn hefted the rock still in his hand and threw it at the guard, knocking his arm and sending the tiny probes flying harmlessly past him to bury instead in the back of the body of the unconscious guard. Before the man had time to recover, Penn was on him. He may no longer have had his vampire strength to rely on, but he still had the advantage of surprise, not to mention several lifetimes’ experience of hand to hand combat - he had after all been raised under the iron fist of Angelus himself.

With all three of them now incapacitated, he searched their pockets, happy to find enough cash between them to last him for now- he had resources squirreled away, and only needed the means to access them, and the time to get plans in place to hide his presence before Wolfram and Hart tried to bring him back in.

A quick stop in the kitchen gave him access to a car to give him a fast getaway, and by the time Lindsey regained consciousness, Penn was long gone.


	4. Chapter 4

It didn’t take more than half an hour for Penn to get away from the quiet suburb he had been held in and into the labyrinth of downtown Los Angeles. He ditched the car, and then vanished into the LA underworld, making his way across town.

Within another hour, he had made it safely to one of his PO boxes; and after carefully breaking in; he pulled out a bag containing a few changes of clothes and a few thousand dollars in cash, as well as a disposable cell, some paperwork and a key.

He stopped off in a coffee shop, where he used the bathroom to change clothes, placing the key in his pocket, and then made his way to a bank. He smiled at the empty interior, glancing up at the now almost fully darkened sky and grinning at the later bank opening hours. When he’d been alive first time, they were strictly 9-5 operations- he had to love the modern world. Once inside, he approached the cashier, producing the papers and holding them out for her.

“Hi there, I have a safety deposit box here that I would like to access please,” he requested with a smile.

“Certainly,” she the cashier replied with a smile, taking the papers. “If you would like to take a seat for a moment, I will get the manager for you Mr…”

“Murray,” he replied as he sat down. “Matthew Murray.”

She smiled again, before standing up. “I will just go and get the manager for you now.”

“Thank you,” he glanced at her name badge. “Shauna,” he grinned, and she melted a little before gathering herself and heading in the direction of the offices.

Penn settled himself in the chair, making sure to keep his posture relaxed and nonthreatening, even as he scanned his surroundings for any sign of danger.

Shauna reappeared within a few minutes, following a man who must have been the manager. Penn stood as they approached, taking the hand that the manager held out to shake.

“Mr Murray,” the man greeted. “I am Charles Smith, the manager. Ms Evans tells me that you would like to access your safety deposit box.”

“That is correct Mr Smith,” Penn acknowledged.

“Your papers are all in order,” Smith smiled, “so if you would like to follow me, and I will take you to your box.”

“Excellent,” Penn replied, before turning to the cashier. “Thank you again for your help Shauna,” he grinned.

“Anytime,” she replied, biting back a grin.

Penn followed the manager to the room containing the boxes, and he let him in, staying by the door.

“I will wait just outside, please, just knock on the door when you are finished,” he informed Penn, before stepping back to let him past.

Penn entered the room with a nod of thanks, and waited for the door to close before he approached the wall of boxes. Pulling the key out of his pocket, he found the right one, sliding the key in and opening the small door. He pulled out the box and set it on the table in the middle of the room, before opening it up and pulling out the paperwork from inside.

He set the box aside, sitting down on the chair to sort it all out. He flicked through the papers, pulling out various birth certificates and detailed backgrounds, including social security numbers, complete with credit histories and associated bank and credit cards, everything he needed for a new identity – along with another stash of banknotes.

He flicked through them all, familiarizing himself with the constructed histories and evaluating them to decide which one suited his needs best, before choosing one.

Taking the whole packet of paperwork for that identity, he placed it in his bag, zipping it up securely before returning everything else to the box, closing it up and securing it all behind the door once more.

Picking up his bag and making sure that he hadn’t left anything behind, he knocked on the door, which opened almost immediately.

Stepping out, Penn waited for the manager to lock up again, before trailing him back out to the main lobby of the bank. 

“Thank you very much for your assistance, Mr Smith,” he smiled, holding his hand out. Mr Smith shook it eagerly. “It was my pleasure Mr Murray,” he responded. “Can I help you with anything further?” he asked.

“Not today, thank you,” he replied. 

“Well then, I’d like to thank you for your continued custom, Mr Murray, and we hope to see you again soon.” 

Penn nodded to him once more before leaving, a grin on his face.

He found the nearest metro station, jumping on and getting on the first train that arrived, before getting off at a random station. Once back on the street, he turned left and walked, stopping at the first motel he saw. Stepping inside, he pulled out one of the new credit cards and slapped it down on the counter.

“I’d like a single for the night please.”

The man behind the counter picked up the card and looked at it.

“Sure thing, Mr Gamble.”


	5. Chapter 5

Penn spent the rest of the evening making plans. Part of him wanted to head as far away as possible from LA, but another part of him reasoned that he would be running blind. He considered going to Angel, but lingering bitterness at his former sire’s role in his death, as well as his pride, prevented that option. He also figured that Wolfram and Hart would have close tabs on Angel, so contacting him would be like walking straight back into their hands.

But he also knew that Wolfram and Hart could and would track him down, unless he did something to hide himself from them. Thankfully, he knew just who to see about that.

He reached for his cell, dialing a number from memory, waiting for it to connect.

“Madam Wu’s,” a female voice spoke cheerfully.

“Good evening, the moon is beautiful this time of year,” he replied in flawless Mandarin.

“One moment,” the voice replied in the same language.

There was a click as he was put on hold, before a second voice came onto the line. “Hello,” 

“Hello Xiu,” Penn greeted. “How are you doing?” he asked.

There was silence on the other end, followed by a gasp of recognition. “Master Penn? I heard you were dead,” Xiu exclaimed.

“I was,” Penn replied dryly. “It didn’t stick. Listen, I need some of your particular brand of assistance as soon as possible.”

“Of course,” Xiu replied. “I am your humble servant.”

“Wonderful, I will be there in a few hours.”

Penn hung up the phone and smiled. Once Xiu had worked her magic, he would be invisible to Wolfram and Hart’s mystics. They could still find him by more traditional means, but it would buy him some time at least.

Now all he had to do was decide what he wanted to do with his second chance at life…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it for the first part of this series, but I already have the next part(s) planned and partially written, so they should be going up soon!
> 
> Hope you are all enjoying reading it, as much as I'm enjoying writing it!!!


End file.
